The title of this blog comes from a Gaelic expression -"putting on the poor mouth"-which means to exaggerate the direness of one's situation in order to gain time or favour from creditors.

28 August 2011

The New Tea Party?

Earl Grey is a tea that you either love or hate. Like Capin Jean Luc Picard I am one of those who likes "Tea, Earl Grey, hot" lbut I must admit that my favourite daily tea is Lady Grey.

That said I can fully sympathise with my Earl Grey drinking brothers and sisters who have risen in revolt against Twinings which has had the temerity to change the flavour of its Earl Grey product.

The rebellion was sparked when Twinings relaunched its Earl Grey.

The company was so confident it would triumph by adding "a dash of lemon and a touch more bergamot" . In the eyes of loyal drinkers this was a trvesty and they are not happy.

A Facebook page was launched, demanding: "Bring back the original Twinings Earl Grey tea." As anger and desperation mounted, one lady, 30 years an Earl Grey drinker, even went so far as to suggest: "I'd rather drink PG Tips." (My God that IS damning!)

Twinings is refusing to capitulate, standing by the new version of its 180-year old tea, named after Charles, the second Earl Grey, who was a leading architect of the 1832 Great Reform Act.
Claire Forster, a company spokeswoman, insisted that since relaunch "our sales results have been the best ever, the highest ever volume share of the Earl Grey market. It was traditionally thought of as the tea you had when you went round to your grandmother's," she said.
"Now a lot of young people are getting into Earl Grey. All products need to evolve to keep up with people's developing palates. We kept it true to the original Earl Grey, just made it a tiny bit more refreshing. But whenever you change something, you can never please everybody."

Earl Grey rebels are being mollified by an offer of a "ten day challenge": £10 to try the new tea for ten days and see if it grows on them. Alternatively complainants who refuse to take part in the challenge, they get a year's supply of the old Earl Grey.

This has not satisfied a legion of hard line Earl Grey drinkers who are planning to demonstrate their anger by pouring several tones of the new tea into Boston Docks - Lincolnshire not Massachusetts...

I hope this will provoke tea consumers into trying the offerings of smaller tea companies. This is a huge own goal on the part of Twinings. Check out my view at http://dasteepsspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/08/if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it.html

About Me

Born Bonaparte O'Coonassa in Corkadoragha where the the torrential rains are more torrential, the squalor more squalid, the hopelessness more utterly hopeless than they are anywhere else. Actually I'm Shaun Downey and I live in Romford which is probably worse (Romford, that is, not my name!)